The first third of my poster, will highlight the three framings of sexual harassment I identified: the feminist, the social conservative, and the management frame. I argue that driven by pragmatism rather than ideology, the latter has undergirded discussions on sexual harassment since the early 1980s, and has severely influenced Americans’ understanding of the phenomenon. While feminists had conceived of sexual harassment as a gendered and systemic civil rights violation, and social conservatives considered the phenomenon a triviality, employers presented it as a non-gendered, individual issue associated with enormous economic risks.
The next section of the poster will highlight the developments which led to a shift of government authorities to the private sector. With the risk of potential multi-million-dollar settlements, court mandated payments, and reputational damages looming, many employers attempted to resolve complaints internally. To this end, internal policies and grievance procedures grew increasingly popular. Then, in 1998, the Supreme Court signaled that the existence of such measures also signified compliance with the Civil Rights Act. Additionally, the court mandated that employees make use of internal grievance procedures before resorting to litigation.
I argue, that this decision was the final straw in a process that shifted authority from public to private. As the first port-of-call, employers took over legislative functions by defining the issue and the rules, judicative functions by judging the individual cases, and executive functions by overseeing preventative and punitive action. Hence, in regard to sexual harassment, the microcosm of a company took on a state-like character. In contrast to the US-government, however, the company was not a democracy. The employer was not an elected body, the company’s interests did not always align with and in fact often contradicted those of the employees, and the system of checks and balances was eliminated, giving reign to arbitrary decision making.
Finally, I will present the consequences of this shift. An analysis of documents from roughly thirty corporations, including but not limited to Playboy, Lehman Brothers, the Digital Equipment Corporation, and Pan American Airlines, strongly suggests that managerial interests often superseded the importance of employees’ civil rights. Additionally, the gendered and systemic nature of the phenomenon was neglected, a lack of due process led to heightened distrust along the gender line, and consensual and coerced sexual interactions became conflated. Additionally, the focus on professionalism rather than civil rights clouded the original reason feminists sought to fight the issue: Sexual harassment constituted sex discrimination.